Question / Help Window capture issue to record drop down menus

[huguescmoi]

Hello,

I 'd like to capture a window (a windows program) that has a menu (File, Edit, View, etc) and I would like to capture the drop down when I click on one of these menus. But OBS only capture the window and does not show the drop down menus (we see the mouse moves and the rest of the window).
I can't find any option or setting to correct that behaviour. Or is this a known limitation ? If it is it should become a severe bug to correct as most people would like to capture windows of their programs fully !

Thanks for any help

 

[Simes]

Menus are rendered as separate windows, and so Window Capture can't pick them up.

 

[huguescmoi]

Wow that is incredible to believe such a basic functionality is not possible! Does anyone know of an alternative capture program that can do it ?

 

[Simes]

It seems unlikely. Because, as I said, menus are separate windows.

 

[Yurlyn]

The best way to capture it would be using a Display Capture but you'll be recording your entire screen and if you have only 1 monitor this could be confusing unless you manage your windows well enough.

 

[huguescmoi]

For information, I found a free program to do that very easily "active presenter", without watermark nor limits, that captures a window with its menus (unlike OBS) and produces a video "at the same pixel size as the original" by just selecting the window (unlike OBS where you have to do lots of manual manipulation to capture the right size)
OBS should offer the same level of functionality as easily.

 

[Fenrir]

For information, I found a free program to do that very easily "active presenter", without watermark nor limits, that captures a window with its menus (unlike OBS) and produces a video "at the same pixel size as the original" by just selecting the window (unlike OBS where you have to do lots of manual manipulation to capture the right size)
OBS should offer the same level of functionality as easily.

It does, with display capture. Your "active presenter" program is just a cropped display capture.

 

[capinand]

Menus are rendered as separate windows, and so Window Capture can't pick them up.

... and yet, if I use the mouse to bring up a drop-down box (and I tried this in several different contexts - drop-down boxes in different programs, and also in the OS), and I do a "print screen" (Fn-Insert on my laptop), then I go to MS Paint and paste in the image, I see that Prt_Scr has captured the entire screen as seen - complete with the drop-down box. If OBS was making a faithful copy of the screen, as I thought it was, then shouldn't it capture what is on the screen? You clearly know something about this that I don't, but could you please explain it better?
Your last comment is now 9 months old. Has any advance in understanding been made since then? Is there a way around this issue?
I'm writing a tutorial to describe the use of a piece of software that uses drop-down boxes when various things are right-clicked, and it's quite frustrating to be telling my audience what I am seeing on the screen without being able to show them.
Naturally, I recognise that OBS is free software, so nobody has a right to complain about it, but somebody wrote it from the same desire as is driving me to make this tutorial - altruism, I guess - and if issues are not brought to light, they can never be fixed. I understand this drive: I also spent many years writing software from which I never expected (or got) any monetary benefit.
Blessed is he who expecteth little, for he shall not be disappointed ;-)

 

[Fenrir]

As mentioned, print screen is using the DISPLAY capture methods, not WINDOW capture.

If you use Display Capture your entire screen, including all menus, will be properly captured. You can crop it if necessary using the alt+drag crop method, or the transform menu (ctrl+e on the source).

 

[capinand]

In searching the Internet for this, I see that I'm by no means the only one who has stumbled over drop-down menus, and I haven't seen any resolutions that have worked for me, but many thanks for your advice. It's only a week since I installed OBS, so I still have a lot to learn about it, but now that you have told me, I'll go looking for the entire screen capture. The program I'm capturing uses the whole screen, so cropping shouldn't be an issue.

 

[capinand]

Sorry - I should have checked OBS before replying. I have now, and the "Sources" box has two entries

The video capture is doing what I want it to (currently disabled) and I tried the display as follows ...
Started recording
Went to my screen, showing Atmel Studio 7.
Diminished the window so it was not filling the screen. Other windows were also shown on the screen at this time.
Using the mouse, stretched various windows left/right and up/down
Stopped recording and looked at the video.
Everything looked just as I had done it - so OBS is recording the entire screen, not simply focusing on a window.
I clicked Properties of the Display capture and clicked and un-clicked Multi-adapter Compatibility (without much hope), but it didn't make any difference. The display seems to be the right size.

When I right-click on Display Capture, I see there's a lot of stuff to do. I tried enabling the different functions of Scale Filtering without success, and I looked at Edit Transform, but nothing really suggested itself as a solution. I made a short recording each time I altered something to see if drop-down boxes were being recorded, but they weren't.
I'm clearly missing something. Any pointers would be most welcome.

 

[capinand]

I've done a bit more research, and it's not as bad as I believed. The Windows drop-down boxes in Windows Explorer ARE being recorded, and even in Studio-7 (the subject of my tutorial), some boxes are recorded, but some are not. However, the ones that are not, I have discovered, ARE being recorded by Prt_Scr.
If there is no easy way of solving this, it's not the end of the world. My students will have downloaded Studio-7, and what they don't see on my tutorial, they should nonetheless be seeing on their own screens when they try what I'm telling them.
I will continue to check here to see if somebody has given me a solution, but as I said, it's not worth busting a gut over.

 

[capinand]

I have opened another issue concerning this, but it has not had any replies. The issue is
https://obsproject.com/forum/threads/obs-not-recording-start-button.82096/

I have discovered that the simplest aspect of this issue to describe, and that can be tested by anybody, is that the Start button is not recorded. There are pictures of this issue and a link to my current log on the issue above.

I was told in the chat room that this issue is not normal - not just me, which means there is a difference between my setup and yours (supposing that yours works)

 

[Mike23423]

Same issue with Atmel Studio 7 and Visual Studio!

Display capture works perfekt, but in Atmel Studio 7 (and Visual Studio) the Dropdown Menus on the dedicated Streaming / recording PC are missing. OBS Studio did not capture them.

5 Second Video with missing Window: https://youtu.be/6VfWlCvuySQ

Using OBS 23.0.2
NDI Plugin 4.6.0

 

[BonesJD]

Is there a feature requests somewhere for this?

Feature: ability for user to capture a specific program and all of it's right click menus, drop downs and preferences sub-windows WITHOUT capturing any other window from another program that might open on top.

Example reason: Capturing a tutorial on a single monitor of a software where it's important to show menus. You need to open File Explorer, Web browser or even start menu but you don't want to dox yourself while streaming.

Possible ideas of implementations: (I'm not a programmer so don't know what's achievable)
- add the ability for window capture to detect and include "sub-windows" related to that program in the capture
- make a kind of "display capture" that just captures all windows in a display area but with a blacklist and whitelist for programs that should and should not be captured when opened in that area
- the ability to add rightclick menus, drop downs and "sub-windows" (like a preferences menu) as extra window captures that can be captured individually

 

[GregZone]

I found this discussion when I was searching to see if this issue has a good solution yet. Doesn’t appear so.

In case it’s of any help, although I prefer OBS for live camera recording, when it comes to recording Application windows, my go to is Camtasia / SnagIt. Camtasia is my preference for post production, and I bought the Camtasia / SnagIt bundle.
Their solution captures Application windows with all submenus etc, easily.

In fact, if your primary target is making tutorial videos, then I’d highly recommend a look at Camtasia, as it is really targeted at tutorial video making applications. It’s not free, but for making Windows application tutorials Camtasia is really hard to beat.